


All Of You

by MissCrazyWriter321



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Falling In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 17:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16288556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCrazyWriter321/pseuds/MissCrazyWriter321
Summary: He falls in love with the same woman three different times.He thinks, perhaps, he is the only man in history to have done so.





	All Of You

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts, mostly finished, for ages. I finally decided to finish it, smooth out some rough edges, and post it. Started as my own musings, turned into an actual fic somehow.
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but my ideas!

He falls in love with the same woman three different times.    
  
He thinks, perhaps, he is the only man in history to have done so.   
  
The first time, it's as close as he's ever come to love at first sight. She strides into the bar, scanning the room, eyes drawn to him in an instant. She moves with precision and grace, an air of elegance about her that clashes with the dirty, grimy, stifling bar. His mouth must fall open, just a bit, as she makes a line straight for him, not even sparing the creeps who call out to her a glance.    
  
Up close, he can see the strands of gray in her hair, the scars that litter her hands and face, the hardness in her eyes that doesn't match her gentle smile.    
  
She's stunning.   
  
"Hello, Garcia," she says, and his mind goes blank. Does he know her? Have they met before? Surely not, he thinks. Surely he would have remembered her.    
  
(A glint catches the corner of his eye, as the artificial light from the bar dances off his wedding ring. A painful reminder that he shouldn’t be noticing her at all. But she's looking at him so tenderly, like she knows all about him, and he can't even think. Though perhaps the drinks aren't helping.)    
  
"I-I don't believe I've-we've-" The alcohol twists his tongue, and he pauses, taking a breath. "I don't know you," he finishes weakly.    
  
Her lips quirk up, and it occurs to him that she could be here to kill him, to finish the job started two weeks ago. He can't bring himself to care. If she plans to reunite him with his family, he's hardly going to put up a fight.    
  
"Not yet," she agrees easily. "But you will."    
  
It should seem like a line, and maybe it is one-her gaze flickers to his lips when she speaks, only for a moment-but it seems like there's more to her words, a hidden meaning, a joke she tells herself.    
  
"I don't understand." At his simple admission, she sobers. Takes a breath. Nods sharply.    
  
"Two weeks ago, Rittenhouse killed your family. Your wife, Lorena. Your daughter, Iris." He would be angry with her, for poking his aching wounds, but she winces as she speaks. As if it hurts her to say, as much as it hurts him to hear. "Because you were getting too close."    
  
He takes a risk, makes a guess. "Are you one of them?"    
  
She blanches, draws back half a step, and shakes her head. "No... Never." A deep breath. She composes herself, closing the distance she's created. "I'm their enemy. I know you want to get revenge, Garcia." Again with his name, so soft and gentle. "I know that's the only reason you haven't-" She falters, as if she physically cannot force the words out. "The only reason you haven't," she finishes simply. No matter. He knows what she means.   
  
His gun, tucked away in his pocket, flickers through his mind. He nods, a conformation she does not seem to need.    
  
"You can bring them down." A promise, quiet but unyielding. "You can put a stop to all of this, but you'll need my help."    
  
"What do you need me to do?" He'll do anything, he realizes. Anything to stop these monsters. Anything she asks. It should be foolish; he hardly knows her, has no way of knowing if she's telling the truth, but he trusts her, down to his bones.   
  
Maybe it's the way she's looking at him.   
  
Maybe it's way she knows so much about him, about his family.   
  
Maybe it's the drink, clouding his mind.   
  
Or maybe it's just that he has nothing left to lose.   
  
Instead of answering aloud, she reaches into her purse, and pulls out a battered book. Not just a book, he realizes moments later. A journal. Worn and faded, with golden letters pressed into the cover.  _ "LP." _   
  
He doesn't ask, but his gaze lingers on the letters, and she notices. Smiles. "Lucy Preston," she offers. "That's me." She giggles nervously, brushes a strand of hair out of her face, and he stares. It's so different from the calm, cool, collected woman she's been that it throws him, for several seconds.    
  
"Garcia Flynn." The response is as instinctive as it is unnecessary, but she doesn't comment, just smiles softly. "What do you want me to do with this?"    
  
She pauses, considering. "Read it. Follow it. Stop Rittenhouse, and save your family."    
  
His blood runs cold. "What?" He barely chokes the word out, and it definitely isn't the alcohol that has him swaying on his seat.    
  
Save his family? Revenge is one thing, putting a stop to all of this, but his family- "My family is dead," he bites out, the words bitter and scalding. "There is no saving them."    
  
This catches her off-guard, for a moment, but then she straightens, meeting his eyes. "Your wife believed that death wasn't the end. Didn't she?" He nods numbly, and she continues. "I know you were never really sure. But I am." She moves suddenly, cupping his cheek, making sure he's looking at her. "I know, somehow, some way, we will save the people we love."    
  
We.   
  
Not the people he loves.   
  
She's lost people, too.   
  
Again, he shouldn't believe her. And maybe he doesn't, not really. But she's promising him his family back, and she's still right in front of him, so close he can feel her breath on his face. And she's stunning, fierce, determined, and he wants-   
  
_ He wants.  _   
  
No more words come to mind, and for a moment, shame coils in him-what is he thinking?-but then her expression shifts. Softens, even more than before. She leans in, half a breath. Pauses. Waits for him.    
  
"I'm not-I can't-I don't-" The words won't come, but she seems to understand.    
  
"I know. It's okay."    
  
How she knows what he means, he isn't sure. Honestly, the meaning is tangled up in his brain, a flash of guilt mixed with a swirl of despair, and just a dash of hope, hope of seeing his family again.    
  
Not letting himself overthink it, he brushes his lips against hers.   
  
It isn't perfect.    
  
He's clumsy, uncoordinated from grief and lack of sleep, and she is barely moving, only just returning the pressure. Being careful not to spook him.    
  
And yet.    
  
When he pulls away, his heart is pounding, mind racing. What is going on?    
  
Her smile is sad this time, and he hates that, wants to make her smile properly again, wants to thank her for what she's given him, wants to ask if she's out of her mind, but does none of these things. Just waits.    
  
"You can't tell me." Whatever he expects her to say, it isn't that. "About this. The next time you see me, you can't tell me about this. And later, when I ask you about all of this, about the journal, you can't tell me we kissed. I won't be ready."    
  
He glances at his drink, wonders if it's stronger than he realized, because none of what she's saying is making sense.    
  
"Promise me," she insists, and he nods.    
  
"I-I promise."    
  
With a final press of lips to his cheek, she leaves, and the crowded bar feels empty without her. (Or maybe that's just him.)   
  
That night, for the first night since the deaths, he rests.    
  
(When he wakes, with a pounding headache but a clear head, he tells himself that this woman, this "Lucy," was crazy. The dead don't come back to life. He hurls the journal across the room, and swears to himself that he will never pick it up again.)   
  
(He lasts one month.)   
  
-   
  
The second time, it is slow but sure, and she isn't even there for it.    
  
The journal is packed with information about Rittenhouse, all the way through history. Figureheads, critical players, people he never would have guessed.   
  
Time travel is hard to swallow, and there are days when he wonders if this is all a fool's errand, but he has nothing left to fight for. If this is true, he can save his family. If not....   
  
If not, he will be breaking into a highly secured facility, and will have no way out. If the journal is nonsense, he doubts he will have much to worry about after that.    
  
He drinks in the details of this horrible organization, reads his hatred reflected on the page, and dreams of burning them to the ground. The same passion liters the journal, with a personal rage he cannot explain. Rittenhouse has taken from her too, although in all his readings, he can never figure out what. Who.    
  
With every day that passes, things happen just as the book says she will. Small things, big things, and everything in between. Elections, pop culture phenomena, and world-changing events come and go, just as she promises.    
  
With every day, this looks less like a fool's errand, and more like a miracle.   
  
He's not sure when it happens, but at some point, he starts to linger on the personal details scrawled in the corners of the book. His attention shifts somewhat, though not completely, to the private jokes, rants, and fond memories of the journal's author.    
  
Of Lucy.   
  
Something in the words seeps into his soul, clinging, refusing to let go. He can almost hear her voice, a company through the lonely days, and when he reads a little before bed, he can almost sleep through the night.    
  
He knows her, he's sure of it, and he can't wait for the day he sees her again. The journal warns that it won't be easy at first, but that's fine; he doesn't mind a challenge.    
  
And if anyone is worth the fight, he thinks it might be Lucy.    
  
-   
  
The third time is, without a doubt, the hardest.   
  
It's one thing to know that she'll hate him. The journal makes that perfectly clear. But it's a very different thing to see her, to see the woman who took his hand in his darkest moments, and gave him hope when he'd forgotten what it felt like, looking at him like some kind of monster. She throws his family in his face, calls him a psychopath, and stares at him like she expects him to kill her on the spot.    
  
She's everything the Lucy in the journal isn't: Desperate to preserve the timeline, loyal to Rittenhouse, (however unwittingly,) and terrified of him.    
  
He tries to believe in her. Gives her every opportunity to become the powerful, fearsome woman he knows she's capable of being. But she flinches away every time, scowling at him and swearing to stop him. She isn't Lucy, isn't his Lucy, and so he doesn't know how to love her. (Doesn't even know if he should. Should he wait until she changes? Wait until she accepts him?)    
  
It's one thing to love an ideal, but this woman is utterly human. Beautifully human, at times, with her endearing clumsiness and her shy smiles, (never at him, of course,) but human, nonetheless. Fallible. He's never let himself think of Lucy that way, and to see her now breaks him, a little. (He doesn't know how to love her, but he also doesn't know how to stop, doesn't know how to _ not  _ be pulled into her orbit. He can feel himself falling all over again, not for a being of myth and legend, but for a woman, one who constantly stands in his way. It feels like a betrayal: To Lorena, to his cause, and to Lucy-his Lucy, the one who pressed a journal into his hand and reminded him of how to breathe-and he hates it. Hates himself for it.)    
  
He's arrested, and any warm, fuzzy feelings he has for this version of her vanish in an instant. She betrays him, or she doesn't think to check for a tail, and that carelessness is betrayal enough.    
  
(Hating her is easier than believing she could fail.)    
  
But she rescues him, brings him into a cold military bunker with teammates who hate him and beds far too short, and gives him her trust with a single nod.    
  
After that, things change.    
  
It's all too easy to love her now, when hatred for Rittenhouse burns in her eyes, and she trusts him to have her back. It's all too easy to guide her away from Wyatt, to sit beside her on that miserable couch and watch a movie he's always hated. To feel butterflies in his stomach, like some sort of school boy, when he gets to go on a proper mission with her, when she isn't still reeling from her sudden heartbreak. (She's still hurting, of course, but it isn't as fresh, and he can coax a smile out of her that leaves him breathless.)    
  
It's easy to love her, because she's so very like HIS Lucy, and in fact, sometimes he forgets that she isn't.    
  
Until he's reminded, with arctic stares and dangerous tones. "What do you want from me, Flynn? You don't know me."    
  
(He does, he  _ does _ know her, better than he knows himself. But she isn't the Lucy from the journal, not yet.)

  
(She isn’t the Lucy from the journal, but he still cares about her, and doesn’t know how to stop. Wouldn’t, even if he could.)   
  
So he forces himself to let go of ideals and journals, to get to know her the normal way. He can scarcely remember what that is, can't remember the last time he's made a proper friend, but he tries his best. Shares about himself, and nearly cries in relief when she shares in return.    
  
That night, she shows up at his door with vodka and a sheepish smile, and by morning, he's well and truly sure that he loves Lucy-this Lucy-not because of any strand of fate tying them together, but because of who she is in the here and now.    
  
He doesn't tell her, of course. He isn't ready, and she certainly isn't. But from that day forward, he is completely, inexorably hers.    
  
-   
(There is a fourth time, technically, but he does not count that. He already loves her, completely, regardless of who she is.    
  
But she returns from her trip to give him the journal, eyes glittering with unshed tears, and it hits him, suddenly, that she is all three Lucys at once: Bar Lucy, Journal Lucy, and Present Lucy. They've all converged into one beautiful, brilliant, powerful woman, and the words slip out unbidden: "I love you."    
  
He should have told her long ago, he knows this, but she does not say that. Just smiles at him tenderly, cupping his cheek with her own. "I know," she whispers, her lips hovering over his. "I've always known."    
  
Their lips touch, and the familiarity is striking; he hasn't done this in years, but for her, it was minutes ago. Once again, time travel is far too much for him to think about. But then her fingers are in his hair, and he gives up trying to think of anything at all, just kisses her until neither of them can breathe.)    
  
He falls in love with the same woman three different times, but she falls in love with him just once: forever. (He wouldn't have it any other way.) 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
